Profile

Biography

BA (London), MA (York), FSA, FRHistS

Sarah Brown is a Senior Lecturer specialising in stained glass, its history and conservation. She is course director of the department’s MA in Stained Glass Conservation and Heritage Management, a role that she combines with her responsibilities as Director of the York Glaziers Trust where she has recently overseen the conservation of the Great East Window of York Minster of 1405-8. She joined the History of Art Department in 2008 after a long career with the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and latterly with English Heritage.

Sarah has worked on ecclesiastical architecture and stained glass of all periods, while specialising in the history and conservation of stained glass of the Middle Ages and Gothic Revival. She is particularly interested in the intersection between art and craft and in the history of stained glass restoration in Great Britain.

Sarah is chairman of the British committee of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi based in the University of York’s Stained Glass Studies Research Cluster.

Sarah is Director and Chief Executive of the York Glaziers Trust, responsible for the care of the stained glass of York Minster and for projects for external clients throughout the UK.

Research

Overview

Stained glass c1300-1950

Stained glass techniques and technologies

Stained glass restoration histories

Projects

Sarah’s recent and current research focuses on the stained glass of York Minster.

A video on Sarah's work on Great East Window at York Minster can be viewed here.

Awarded

The European stained glass trade, with special reference to the trade between the Rhineland and the United Kingdom 1820-1835

Marie-Helene Groll

William Burrell, Thomas & Drake and the transatlantic trade in stained glass in stained glass 1900-1950 (AHRC-funded CDA with Glasgow Life (the Burrell Collection))

Louise Hampson

The history and development of the stained and painted glass of York Minster, from the late fifteenth century to 1829

Anya Heilpern

The painted glass of Winchester Cathedral, c.1495 - c.1528

Sarah is particularly interested in hearing from students interested in working on aspects of the relationship between stained glass art and craft and in the interactions between art history and conservation.

Publications

Selected publications

Books

The Great East Window of York Minster: An English Masterpiece (London, 2018)

‘Repackaging the Past: the Survival, Preservation and Reinterpretation of the Medieval Windows of St Mary’s Fairford, Gloucestershire’ in Virginia Chieffo Raguin (ed), Art, Piety and Destruction in the Christian West 1500-1700 (Farnham 2010), 91-112

‘Stained Glass Conservation at York Minster: Past Histories, Future Challenges’, in L. Pilosi, M. Shepherd and S. Strobl (eds.) The Art of Collaboration: Stained Glass Conservation in the Twenty-First Century Proceedings of the 2009 Corpus Vitrearum Forum on the Restoration and Conservation of Stained Glass Windows (London/Turnhout 2010), 57-64